Game of the week? More like lame of the week, amirite?
Cowboys-Chiefs was supposed to be a fireworks show. Instead it was a mud-wrestling match. Dak Prescott and Patrick Mahomes faced off in the high-profile quarterback matchup of the season, and neither threw a single touchdown pass. The final score was a weird-looking (though, not a Scorigami) 19-9, and the story of the game was about how Steve Spagnuolo's Chiefs defense smothered the Cowboys' high-powered (albeit short-handed) offense all night. Kansas City confused Prescott with coverages and blitzes and the sheer individual might of Chris Jones (3.5 sacks), and Dallas headed home with its lowest single-game point total since last November's infamous Ben DiNucci game.
This game was always made to lead the overreactions column, so why delay the inevitable? After a performance like this against a team that has played in the past two Super Bowls, the only logical way to begin this week is with ...
The Cowboys are in trouble
Dallas has now lost two of its past three games after a 6-1 start and is showing cracks in the veneer. What's worse, the Cowboys have to play again Thursday, and they are likely to be significantly short-handed for their traditional Thanksgiving game. Top wideout Amari Cooper is on the reserve/COVID-19 list and won't be cleared in time for Thursday. Fellow top wideout CeeDee Lamb is in concussion protocol as a result of a hard landing in Sunday's game, and it's tough to clear concussion protocol in four days.
It's a tight turnaround complete with several questions to answer in a short period of time, and a couple of the key guys who help them answer those questions will likely be out.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. Look, it's not good to be without Cooper and Lamb. Every team would feel the absence of a couple of players like that. But they're not out for the year. Cooper, in particular, should have no problem being back for the following Thursday as long as he's not significantly ill with COVID-19. And the Cowboys should get healthier in one very important spot this week, as left tackle Tyron Smith has a chance to play Thursday against the Raiders. They just went 1-2 without him, but he was close to being back from his ankle injury for this one. His return will help.
No, I think Sunday was more about the Chiefs putting things together than it was about things falling apart for the Cowboys. Kansas City has had a rough go, but it is back in command in the AFC West. Patrick Mahomes is making fewer terrifying decisions as the season goes along, and Spagnuolo's defense really does look great. This was a home game, the visitors were short-handed and the Chiefs know how to win big games.
I don't think you ding the Cowboys too badly for this one, especially with their division lead still at a solid 2.5 games and the upcoming schedule (Raiders, Saints, Washington, Giants, Washington) not exactly loaded with teams that scare you right now. Dallas' strong first half of the season built it some margin for error. It has made it tougher on itself to grab that NFC playoff bye, but it's far from the only contender that has endured a hiccup or two lately.
The Patriots are the best team in the AFC
The New England Patriots didn't even play Sunday. They played, you might remember, Thursday night, when they shut out the Atlanta Falcons 25-0 on the road on a short week for their league-high fifth win in a row. They've allowed 13 total points in their past three games and none in their past seven quarters.
On Sunday, with the Pats sitting at home enjoying their half-bye week, the Buffalo Bills got smoked at home by the Indianapolis Colts, a result that moved New England into first place in the AFC East. The AFC South-leading Titans got whipped at home by the lowly Houston Texans, which means New England is only a game behind Tennessee for the top seed in the conference. (The Pats can catch the Titans on Sunday if they beat them head-to-head in Foxborough.)
The only thing that would have made the week better for the Patriots is if the Bears had been able to stop Baltimore Ravens backup QB Tyler Huntley from executing a game-winning drive in rainy Chicago. As it stands, Baltimore remains a half-game better than New England in the standings. Over the past month, though, no AFC team has looked as overall consistently good as Bill Belichick's bunch.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. By the time this is all over, I don't think anyone would be shocked if Belichick's team had the only bye in the AFC playoffs. But I also don't think the Patriots are going to win every game the rest of the way. I know they don't look great right now, but the Bills still factor into this conversation. They still have one of their games against the Jets left, while the Patriots have played both of theirs.
The two head-to-head games still remaining between Buffalo and New England will go a long way toward deciding the AFC East, and possibly even the No. 1 seed. Tennessee could very well rebound from this week's hiccup and reset the balance of power with a win next week. And Kansas City doesn't look as if it's out of this conversation yet either.
After next week's home game against the Titans, New England has a Monday night road game in Buffalo, a bye week, a road game in Indianapolis and a home game against Buffalo. It is set up well for the defining month of the season, but the definition remains unclear until it gets through that gauntlet. Let's circle back on this in a month and see how it's going. Until then, it's an overreaction.
Jonathan Taylor belongs in the MVP conversation
In their first nine games of the season, the Bills gave up five total touchdowns to opposing running backs. In Sunday's 41-15 loss to the Colts, they gave up five to Taylor, who has raced past the injured Derrick Henry and into the league lead in rushing yards and touchdowns.
Taylor has tied Ladainian Tomlinson's NFL record with eight consecutive games of at least 100 scrimmage yards and a touchdown. He has scored 23 touchdowns since Dec. 1 of last year, which is seven more than any other player in the league. (Alvin Kamara has 16.) His 96 rushing yards after contact Sunday are the second most in a game this season, behind Henry's 113 (oddly enough, against the Bills) in Week 6.
The Colts have won five of their past six games after starting the season 1-4, and when their game ended Sunday, their chances to reach the playoffs were up to 53%, according to ESPN's Football Power Index. The defense has played better and QB Carson Wentz has been solid, but Taylor is the dominant force driving the Indy offense during its midseason surge.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. We all know this award leans toward quarterbacks and likely will again this season. But none of the top QBs is running away with it at this point, and it's impossible to watch the Colts and not think what Taylor is doing is as valuable to his team as any player is to any team in the league right now. You hear a lot of talk about "offensive identity," but there's no question the Colts know what theirs is, and it's completely tied up in Taylor, the second-year back out of Wisconsin who has emerged as a terrifying juggernaut no one can seem to stop.
The Colts are two full games behind first-place Tennessee in the AFC South and already lost both head-to-head matchups, so the division is an uphill climb at best. But a wild-card spot is by no means out of the question. If they snag one, Taylor's going to be the biggest reason why.
The Browns need to shut down Baker Mayfield -- for his own good and theirs
The Cleveland Browns won 13-10 Sunday, so this might be piling on. But the team they beat was the Detroit Lions, who haven't won a game all season. Beating the Lions is less an accomplishment than it is a box-checking. The outcome was a good one for the Browns because the opposite outcome would have been an existential disaster and because division-rival Pittsburgh couldn't pull it off the week before, when they and the Lions tied.
No, the point here is about Mayfield, the Cleveland quarterback who looks as if pieces of him are about to fall off. He has been playing since mid-September with a significant injury to his left (non-throwing) shoulder. He injured a knee against the Patriots in Week 10. Mayfield is toughing it out and determined to play through all of it, but he has also completed just 52% of his passes for less than 5.0 yards per attempt, two touchdowns and three interceptions in his past two games. He's clearly not operating at full strength, and it's clearly affecting his performance.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. I get the conundrum. The 6-5 Browns are in last place in the AFC North, but they're also only a game out of first in the only division in the league in which every team is better than .500. They are directly in the middle of the playoff race a year after they reached the divisional round, and they owe it to themselves and their fans to do everything they can to win as many games as possible.
The issue is, I just don't see how you can make a convincing case that starting a clearly compromised Mayfield gives them an appreciably better chance than starting a healthy Case Keenum. This is a run-first team that is only getting healthier in the run game and can lean on Nick Chubb for now and the Chubb/Kareem Hunt tandem eventually. Not being a doctor, I can't speak to the idea of whether Mayfield would be better in a few weeks if he got some games off. But he does not appear, at the present time, to be helping the cause. And he's certainly not going to get any healthier by playing.
The Eagles will make the playoffs
The NFC's don't-look-now team is the team in green playing in the City of Brotherly Love. Behind second-year quarterback Jalen Hurts, who entered the season looking as if he might be a placeholder for Deshaun Watson or some other high-end QB option in 2022, the Philadelphia Eagles have won three of their past four games to improve to 5-6 with six games remaining. They routed the New Orleans Saints 40-29 on Sunday.
Hurts has shown steady improvement with accuracy and decision-making as the year has gone on. He's also developing a strong rapport with rookie first-round pick DeVonta Smith as the team has retooled the offense to lean more on its running backs instead of asking Hurts to be the whole thing. Right now, they sit ninth on the NFC playoff seeding chart, but they're only a half-game worse than No. 6 seed Minnesota and No. 7 seed New Orleans.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. The Eagles are not only on the verge of the playoffs, they are set up with the friendliest end-of-season schedule you could possibly imagine. They do not have to board an airplane again the rest of the way, as their remaining three road games are either bus or train rides away. They're at the Giants next week, at the Jets the week after that and then they get a bye week. After the bye they have back-to-back home games against Washington and the Giants, a road game in Washington and a Week 18 home game against a Cowboys team that the math still tells us might be resting starters at that point.
A team that has shown steady improvement all season had its way with one of the teams in front of it in the standings, so it shouldn't have an issue with the rest of the schedule. The Eagles should have your attention. And don't look now, but Hurts is making the case that the Eagles should think about using their three first-round picks on positions other than his.